


pastoral

by gotchick



Series: xx hours [4]
Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: M/M, based on the tomorrow today mv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-15 22:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11815383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotchick/pseuds/gotchick
Summary: Jaebum drives even slower than before when they get back in, like he doesn’t want this road to end.Five years… he can wait that long, he figures. It would be nice to see the world outside Jaebum’s shadow — even though this boy’s shadow is all he’s ever wanted to be.





	pastoral

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this fic isn’t prompted but as mentioned in the tags, based off my interpretation of the music video :) since it’s pretty short i thought i’d just include it in the series. i want to dedicate it to any members of my noona squad who might be reading this, and the extended squad too. even when we're not talking, i always always love you.
> 
> sorry for making 4 posts together but this will be the last one for today as these were the only fics I worked on during my hiatus! thank you so much to everyone who reads one or more of the series, and most of all any readers who took the time to read all! ;A;

Japan is lush, towering greenery all around with only the narrow strip of road they are driving down parting the sea of forest. Their solitary, worn pink and white truck navigates the gentle humps of the road gracefully, under Jaebum’s hand on the wheel. Ahead of them and behind, there’s no one else as far as the eye can see. Only them, the road and their music.

When he closes his eyes, he can imagine they’re the last two people left in the world.

 

Jaebum pulls over on the road shoulder and they disembark to stretch their legs. He climbs onto the roof of the truck, so Jinyoung lies back on the bonnet, pillowing his palms behind his head and leaning back on the windshield. The glass is cold against his back through his clothes, a nice chill like the one in the air. He studies the sky and the canopy of sparse evergreen and wonders what Jaebum is thinking staring at his knees, even though they’re facing opposite directions.

The silence is unbroken and restful.

 

A little up ahead is an enormous field, almost pastoral as a meadow, with a row of suburban houses in the background. But they’re far away enough not to shatter the illusion that both of them are truly together alone for the first time in years. The grass smells nice, like childhood soccer games and the tallest area in the middle comes up to their waists. It would be a waste not to play a game of hide-and-seek.

Jaebum lopes away slowly, making a playful, lingering twirl as if he’s hesitant to leave him behind. Jinyoung is still looking at the sky, mesmerized by how different and yet the same it looks from a bright, open space like this; but he somehow still catalogues in his peripheral vision the back view of Jaebum’s denim jacket, blue and black striped shirt and his corduroy slacks, hands shoved into his pockets as he shuffles forward, looking at the ground.

They run into each other right in the middle of all the tall grasses, stopping and staring at each other incredulously. The game ends rather anticlimactically without a winner, and they agree to call a truce.

 

Tired out, they return to the truck. Jaebum perches on the bonnet with his legs crossed and takes out his book, so Jinyoung turns and leans against the side of the truck, fishing his dog-eared copy out too.

Jaebum eventually slides down into a lying position, squinting at his book intently with one hand pillowed behind his head. Jinyoung drops his book and drifts off, still thinking about the last scene he read with his chin propped on his folded arms.

 

He finds Jaebum lying in the middle of the deserted road a distance away from the truck, hand still pillowing his head. One of his legs is bent at the knee and his jacket is off, one shirt button undone. His face is the picture of serenity with his eyes shut, looking as if he’s soaking up the mild warmth of the last rays of sun from the asphalt.

Jinyoung lies down without hesitation and imitates his posture, closing his eyes too.

 

The sunlight catches in rainbow prisms as they stroll down the stretch of unbroken road meanderingly, Jaebum glancing behind to check for oncoming vehicles. With their hands warm and deep in their pockets and the truck still ahead of them, barely out of sight, it feels like they could be lost in the middle of nowhere, lost together.

 

Jaebum drives even slower than before when they get back in, like he doesn’t want this road to end. The sinking sun illuminates the dull auburn waves in his hair, his side profile concentrating seriously on the road disappearing beneath their tires.

 

They make a detour, bump unsteadily onto a shortcut worn into an alcove of the woods. There’s sky up ahead but the place Jaebum parks again is surrounded by dense pines.

“Get in the back,” Jaebum says in his short way, but hoists him up gently before climbing in behind him. He hooks his arm over the back of the truck and looks back at the miles they’ve made. He feels Jaebum glancing at him, but he’s not sure.

 

Jaebum has that contemplative expression on his face again and Jinyoung looks away. He wonders how he himself appears, whether the thoughtfulness and pensiveness he is feeling is visible in his eyes.

Perhaps it is, because Jaebum goes away for a little on his own, taking his book with him, but Jinyoung sees him stop reading after awhile under the tree he’s leaning against, lowering his head.

 

Like stumbling upon a miracle, Jinyoung happens upon an ancient TV set abandoned in the middle of a clearing. But what feels more marvellous is the sight of the wintry peaks of Hokkaido in the distance, their tops disappearing into the thick bank of clouds.

“Do you think it still works?” Jaebum laughs gleefully like a child as they carry it together to the truck and dump it in the back. He feels a twinge of guilt for taking what’s not theirs, but also an illicit thrill that comes only from stealing something with the person one loves.

 

It does work, but refuses to show anything but blue and white static on the screen. The pattern makes them dizzy, but they don’t switch it off, leaving it buzzing in the background of their motel room as they work on a puzzle. It’s huge, the pieces tiny, the kind of puzzle that seems impossible to complete. And yet, Jinyoung knows that like all things that seem endless, it will arrive at its denouement all too soon.

He has changed into his favourite winter sleepwear, a knitted white sweater Jaebum once said made him look like an angel. Jaebum’s bangs fall into his conscientious eyes as he fits matching pieces together. When they get bored Jinyoung lays back on his sofa bed and Jaebum scoots nearer to the retro TV set, watching the blue and white bars with the occasional black flicker across the screen as if hypnotized.

Jinyoung forgets to blink for so long his eyes glaze over. He has Jaebum’s book propped open facedown on his chest, at a page he found a line Jaebum highlighted. He ponders it, ponders the boy behind him.

 

The next morning he wakes up earlier than Jaebum and slips out of the room, getting into the car to warm himself up.

He touches the steering wheel Jaebum held and imagines him in this icy blue light of dawn, dressed in only the simple white tee he sleeps in. A montage of memories, some real, some imagined, flashes by in his mind like a cinemagraph. Jaebum’s chipped fingernails against the chipped pink paint of the bumper, an unlikely aesthetic.

He touches the wheel and thinks of Jaebum turning to speak casually to him, smile friendly, eyes moving over him naturally to check that his seatbelt was on before he started driving.

Thinks of what Jaebum would have done if he had found the TV, beside a picturesque, glassy lake; whether he would have told Jinyoung or kept it a secret. Thinks of himself in the midst of all this green, too deep in the forest for anyone to find, raising his head to the sky to seek an answer. Would he find the end to his searching.

The sky tells him only that autumn is over, winter setting in.

 

The dim orange recessed overhead lights; the sky blue windows flashing past — everything about the tunnel is worn and tired, but it seems to signal a premature return to civilization.

The end is within sight and Jinyoung is gripped by the urge to memorize every last detail of this unremarkable scene: Jaebum’s tousled morning hair; the single earring in his right ear; the steel of the heavy watch around his wrist Jinyoung knows from experience will be cold to the touch. The carefree smile draped lazily across Jaebum’s face as if they have one more day together, a hundred.

As if they have a tomorrow, when they only have today.

The hazy still-blue cast of morning caresses Jaebum’s skin, achingly gorgeous. It’s the perfect juxtaposition of light and shadow, a scene most photographers would kill to capture, but Jinyoung doesn’t touch his camera. He smiles back. The wind rushes by and tosses their hair. He shivers, and Jaebum slings an arm around his shoulder in a final gesture of gentleness.

 

The road sign hung far up ahead tells them that it’s the end of their journey, and the first day of the rest of their lives. The truck speeds towards it, under it, beyond. It slows, almost reluctantly, but Jaebum is only bringing it to a smooth halt.

They get out of the cramped compartment at the same time, close their doors with a crisp sound. Their first instinct is to look around, taking in their surroundings, the new space between them, the scene of their parting. Jaebum looks back at the sign, the slightest hint of unwillingness and retrospection in his gaze. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

And Jinyoung — Jinyoung’s eyes are drawn to the salmon pink of the sunrise behind him, turning beautifully into a golden glow at the horizon.

As always, their gazes are drawn in different directions. The almost gravitational pull between them is still there, strong as ever, but there are new and invisible forces enticing them gradually but undeniably in opposite paths.

 

Jaebum’s lashes veil his eyes when Jinyoung turns back, but he gives Jinyoung a half-smile.

Jinyoung expresses the unspoken question that’s been on the tip of his tongue the whole trip with his eyes, but Jaebum replies softly, “Nothing’s changed.”

Jinyoung looks at him, longingly.

“We decided that after this last road trip, if we still feel the same in another five years, then we’d come back and consider forever,” Jaebum reminds him.

 

Jinyoung smiles then. “I know,” he says. _That I’ll still feel the way I do today_ , he doesn’t add.

Five years… he can wait that long, he figures. It would be nice to see the world outside Jaebum’s shadow — even though this boy’s shadow is all he’s ever wanted to be.

After all, they will be different people in five years. Five years… the distance between childhood and youth; youth and adulthood. He, too, wants to confirm that these feelings can withstand the test of time.

 

They part ways beneath the two red arrows pointing in opposite directions, ahead only a vast expanse of field. They’ve run out of road, in more ways than one. But like they promised, they had driven on until they did. Both walk away with their hands in their pockets, and neither look back.

 

Okay, he lied — he does.

He looks back and remembers last night — their last night together. They spent it in the same room but not the same bed, lying on their respective couches at a blind angle to each other. Jaebum’s arms were folded over his chest, like he was chilly in his white tee. The puzzle pieces were still scattered haphazardly over the floor, unfinished like their youth, an open ending like their relationship.

He stared at a page in The Catcher in the Rye and pondered the meaning of what he was seeking in life, whether it was just as simple as the noises of Jaebum behind him, reaching for Veronika Decides to Die and flipping it open to a page, closing the distance between them and nudging Jinyoung to read the line he had earlier highlighted.

So he had done it to share with Jinyoung.

Jinyoung dog-eared his book and took the slim volume from Jaebum’s hand, their fingers brushing. He arched his neck to see Jaebum’s easy smile playing at his lips, looking relaxed on his lumpy mattress.

Just for that smile, Jinyoung happily handed his book over to Jaebum. He heard Jaebum flipping open the well-loved book and smiled to himself, all his secrets safe for that moment in the hands where they belonged.


End file.
